Weeds and other vegetation often grow in shallow water near the shore of a lake, river, or other body of water. It is often desirable to cut these plants at the floor of the body of water as they hinder water movement and can obstruct recreational activities such as swimming and boating.
Water weeds can be manually pulled or manually cut beneath the water's surface with a sharp cutting tool. Both of these processes are very laborious and time consuming. My invention, an underwater weed cutter, has a novel cutting mechanism enclosed within a novel housing and provides an efficient, safe, and easy method of underwater weed removal.
Other underwater weed cutters are known to exist, but none have the novel features of my invention. For example, the cutters disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,344,626 (Ellis), French Patent No. 2,575,360, U.S. Pat. No. 2,635,406 (Chauvin), U.S. Pat. No. 2,677,926 (Washbourne et al.), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,566 (Donnelley) all utilize disc-shaped cutters. U.S. Pat. No. 1,392,900 (Ambrose) discloses an unpowered cutter utilizing discs and having no housing. British Patent No. 1,589,365 (Body) discloses a cutting device having cutters projecting slightly from a housing, but the housing is scoop designed to retain the cut matter. The cutters, instead of rotating in opposite directions from a centerline, change rotation from each cutter to the next.
One of the objects of my invention is to provide an underwater weed cutter that can be pushed or propelled along the bottom of a lake or other body of water or submerged in an area to cut weeds. Another object is to provide a novel cutting mechanism whereby two (2) sets of V-shaped blades which form links of a chain enter a cutting region at a centerline and then move in opposite directions toward the sides of the underwater weed cutter while cutting. The invention includes a generally closed housing having a front opening where the underwater weeds enter and are cut by the blades and a rear opening where the cut weeds are discharged. Still another object is to provide an underwater weed cutter that is light weight, easy to transport, has a self-contained power source, and is safe to operate.